Shannon Whitworth can use the stage to spread a green message

Getting the green out

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When Shannon Whitworth comes to Charleston, she wants to sit in the water. She might even go fishing.

"I love everything," she gushes about our city. "I love the climate, I love the landscape, I love the salt water. I love the smell of low tide. I love it all."

Of course, she also wants to visit her niece and her other loved ones that reside here. The guitar, banjo, and uke-pickin' singer-songwriter even hopes to call the Lowcountry home one day. And she understands that what she considers a "beautiful, clean Charleston" can be affected by the plastic bags we get at the grocery store or by whether or not we choose to carpool.

To Whitworth, it's all about the little things that we can do to help our environment. And as a musician, she feels she can play a role in encouraging this change. "I think the more multimedia, the more ways you can hit people, visually, socially, through music, through movies, through whatever it is, the ways you can get to their brain, and all those different mediums, the better," she says. "I think we need to sort of look at ourselves as stewards of the world, the environment."

While she doesn't want to preach, she supports sharing green ideas. She cites Michael Franti as a celebrity to emulate; Franti and his band Spearhead don't use water bottles while on tour and power their busses with biodiesel. "We're really lucky that we get to stand in front of people day in and day out and entertain them ... You can spread the message. You can help people realize."

At the Green Fair, Whitworth and her band will play old material and songs from her latest record, Water Bound, which was released in August. Besides musical influences, like Paul Simon and blues artists, Whitworth finds inspiration in her surrounding landscapes — so it's obviously important for her to help maintain them.

When she's not on stage, Whitworth embraces green practices in her personal life. For the older house she recently bought in Brevard, N.C. with new husband Woody Platt (from Green Fair headliner Steep Canyon Rangers), she's striving to make it more efficient and more ecologically sound. They're even working with the state to get a grant to help improve the French Broad River that runs behind her new home.

"Everything we do affects everybody," she says. "As much as I can do, as much as I can be a steward to where I live and where I visit, it's definitely a conscientious thing."